A sphere askew: operations, territory and the public in the digital age
ISSN: 0368-492X
Article publication date: 15 December 2020
Issue publication date: 4 May 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The public is often associated with a spatial entity: the sphere. Recent technical developments, however, raise questions about the applicability of the sphere as a concept in social, political or economic studies. This paper aims to discuss two different intuitions related to spheres regarding operational and territorial attributes. It identifies a growing discrepancy between these intuitions as a result of the spread of digital technology in society. The notion of the sphere must therefore be used more carefully in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper takes a conceptual approach based on constructs developed by Habermas for the analysis of the bourgeois public. The resulting twofold model is validated on the background of current research in organisational science and general considerations about the effect of digital technology on society.
Findings
The paper identifies an increasing inconsistency in the conceptions of social spheres, which implies that accustomed spatial concepts cannot further be used as before in this context. Exemplary evidence about this divergence is gathered from extant work in the field.
Originality/value
While a lot has already been said about social dynamics in the digital age, their consequences for the applicability of the sphere as a spatial concept have not yet been properly addressed. The paper identifies a fundamental problem in the discourse on social spheres in the digital age that challenges the internal consistency of the concept, independently from any further epistemological or ontological considerations.
Keywords
Citation
Fritzsche, A. (2021), "A sphere askew: operations, territory and the public in the digital age", Kybernetes, Vol. 50 No. 4, pp. 942-954. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-07-2020-0415
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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